1. Field
The invention relates generally to equipment used to transport nuclear fuel assemblies within a nuclear power generating facility, and more particularly to such a piece of equipment that will not get tangled in the components of a top nozzle of a fuel assembly as the equipment is being aligned to grip the top nozzle.
2. Related Art
In a nuclear reactor power plant, one design of a fuel assembly is comprised of a plurality of fuel elements or rods oriented in a square-shaped array. For a typical pressurized water reactor, there are on the order of approximately 200 to 300 of these elongated fuel rods in each fuel assembly. At either end of the fuel assembly is a top and bottom nozzle which direct the flow of coolant, typically water, through the fuel assembly. Interspersed among the fuel rods are hollow tubes, or thimbles, into which control rods are inserted. The control rods contain neutron absorbent material and are moved into and out of the plurality of guide thimbles to help control the nuclear reaction. These fuel assemblies also contain a centrally located instrumentation tube which allows the insertion of in-core instrumentation during reactor operation. The thimbles and instrumentation tube project between the top and bottom nozzles. Between the top and bottom nozzles, a plurality of spacer grids are positioned at intervals to provide lateral support for the fuel rods. The top nozzle is positioned at the upper end of the fuel assembly and connects to one end of the guide thimbles to allow the load of the entire fuel assembly to be carried from the bottom nozzle, which is connected to the other end of the guide thimbles, with the fuel assembly weight transferred up the guide thimbles to the top nozzle. The fuel assembly top nozzle and bottom nozzle are configured to aid in channeling coolant through the assembly during operation. In this configuration, the weight of the fuel rods is born by the guide thimbles and not by the fuel rods when the fuel assembly is lifted by the top nozzle.
In an equilibrium core a typical fuel assembly will see three operating cycles before it is removed from the reactor and transported under water through a refueling canal to a spent fuel pool in a separate spent fuel building outside the reactor containment.
When handling the fuel assembly, a fixture such as a refueling mast or other overhead crane is positioned over the reactor after the reactor head and upper internals are removed and connected to the top nozzle of the fuel assembly. The fuel assembly is then lifted from the core by the refueling machine which transports the fuel assembly under water through a flooded area in the containment above the reactor vessel, to a fuel assembly transport cart. The transport cart translates the fuel assembly to a horizontal position so it can pass through a refueling canal which connects to the spent fuel pool. A separate fuel handling machine in the spent fuel building uprights the fuel assembly and transports it to an appropriate location within the racks within the spent fuel pool.
Existing designs of spent fuel assembly handling tools built for certain styles of fuel assemblies, such as that described above, include gripper fingers at a fixed elevation below a tool head of the handling tool. These gripper fingers pivot between a latched and unlatched position by raising and lowering an actuator. This design requires an operator to lower the tool onto a fuel assembly until the tool is resting on the top nozzle of the fuel assembly. The existing tools incorporate two alignment “S-pins” that must be inserted in two alignment “S-holes” on the top nozzle by a skilled technician. If the alignment of these pins to the holes is incorrect, the tool can be lowered in an orientation in which the gripper fingers contact or interfere with the top nozzle hold down springs. Such interference can cause the gripper fingers to become locked under the hold down springs requiring non-normal recovery efforts. In the Spring of 2012, a refueling machine gripper was lowered onto a fuel assembly and became stuck due to gripper finger to top nozzle interaction, which caused a seven-day delay in the refueling outage. During the Fall of 2012, a spent fuel tool lowered onto a fuel assembly became stuck due to finger to top nozzle interaction resulting in an 18-hour delay.
The refueling operation usually determines the critical path for an outage during which replacement power has to be purchased at a relatively high cost. Anything that delays the refueling process is to be avoided wherever possible.
Accordingly, it is an object of this invention to provide a fuel handling tool design that will not adversely get caught up in the components of the top nozzle.
Additionally, it is a further object of this invention to provide such a tool design that is simple to operate.